- The Pens, one of the hotter teams in the NHL, face perhaps the hottest team in the NHL in Anaheim, who has lost only 2 of their previous 18 games in regulation
- Bruce Boudreau returns to Pittsburgh for the first time with his new team. He is 12-1-3 all-time in the regular season against the Pens.
- The Pens have overcome 2 goal deficits in each of their last 2 games and will be looking to get off to a much stronger start in this game, especially with the Ducks playing last night.
- Today is the 3 year anniversary of Bylsma getting hired by the Penguins. On top of it, he coaches against his most memorable team as a player, the Ducks. I’m sure he’s looking for a big win here.
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| Happy 3 year anniversary Disco! |
Result:
Ducks 2 Penguins 1
Goals: Staal (17) from Dupuis
The Good:
- The Pens honestly played a good game overall. They had a lot of pressure in the Ducks zone, but just couldn’t find a way to turn that into scoring chances and goals. This is just one of those nights where you’ll be relatively happy with how the team played though the result did not go your way.
- Letang came up with another save on the goal line, something he seems to be doing a lot since he came back from his concussion.
Matt Cooke – He may not be lighting up the scoreboard or ending anyone’s career, but Cooke had a very big contribution in the game tonight in a defensive effort. He had 2 takeaways and 2 blocked shots during regular 5 on 5 play, and then contributed his usual stellar work on the PK. Cooke was a big part of the effort that kept a potentially high scoring Ducks team rather quiet.
Jordan Staal – Staal continues to show that he has found his goal scoring touch from his rookie season. He picked the corner perfectly on Hiller to score the only goal of the game for the Pens. He also put in a solid effort defensively along with Cooke, both on the PK and during 5 on 5 play. Staal’s line was assigned the Perry-Getzlaf line, and Staal and Cooke kept them off of the board when the matchup was in play.
Brooks Orpik – Orpik led the team in ice time with 24:39, had 2 blocked shots, was a +1, and led the team with astounding NINE hits. He was very sound positionally and didn’t commit a single mistake as far as I could tell all game. This may have been his best game of the season, though unfortunately it did not help enough on the scoreboard.
The Bad:
- For all of the pressure the Pens got tonight, they only managed 26 shots and the failure to get the puck on net even led to the 2nd goal for the Ducks. There was a little too much work done at the blue line in the offensive zone, leading to the turnover that sent the Ducks in on a 2 on 1 and a beautiful game winner for Selanne. To make my point even more clear, 13 of the Pens shot (half for those of you counting at home) were by defensemen tonight. Additionally, Neal was shotless, which is rare for the leading shooter in the NHL.
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| Michalek going in for a wrap-around isn't exactly a good sign offensively. |
- The Pens simply don’t know how to beat Bruce Boudreau in the regular season. The Ducks clearly knew what they were doing against the Pens and how they wanted to handle their matchups. Gotta give Boudreau credits, it doesn’t matter who he’s coaching, he knows how to play the Pens, moving to 13-1-3 in his career against them.
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| If anyone outside of the organization knows the Penguins, it's definitely Boudreau. |
The Ugly:
- The Martin/Michalek pairing. They weren’t even paired together tonight, but ended up on the ice for the last minute of the 2nd period. The last minute saw Martin lose coverage on Bobby Ryan skating around a corner. Ryan then passed it off to Perry. Michalek, who seems to go brain-dead when paired with Martin, dropped to the ice and Perry shoved the puck under him and then through Fleury. One shift together, one goal against.
- The powerplay. We’ve all seen at this point that refs are now giving out only 1-3 powerplays per game. With their one powerplay, the Pens managed to give up a breakaway, a semi-breakaway, and more chances to the Ducks than they had for themselves. Efficiency is key with the reffing now, and the Pens were awful on their one chance.
Thoughts:
- Being a hockey dork, I found the line matchups to be fascinating tonight. With the Pens having last change, the Staal line was matched up against Perry/Getzlaf and the Malkin line was matched up against Selanne/Ryan. How did it work out? The Staal line held Perry’s line scoreless, and even came up with a goal of their own. The Malkin line was out for Perry’s goal and for Selanne’s goal. It is becoming increasingly clear that one of the ways to slow down Malkin’s line is to put your top offensive guys against them so they have to play defense instead of putting out a normal defensive checking line.
- The Kunitz “slash” with 3 minutes to go was a BS call in THIS game. I’m okay with that being a slash, it was a slash. However, refs stopped calling that about 3 months ago. If these refs would have called every slash like that through the game, each team would have had 5-6 powerplays and I would have been okay with the call. The lack of consistency is infuriating though. Make those calls all game, or don’t, but it’s gotta be one or the other. Even Teemu Selanne called it a weak call in his post game interviews.
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| Shero, get Selanne at the trade deadline, PLEASE. |
- Watching the Park-Vitale-Adams line tonight made me realize how much help Arron Asham might actually be for that line. I imagine Park will be the one who sits as he gets the least ice time per night and the PK has a lot of depth right now. Asham will add a lot of size and grit to that line in their forechecking. Adams and Vitale can certainly skate and hit, but they don’t necessarily have the size to turn it into something. Asham could make even more waves with that line.
Pens Record: 32-20-5, 69 pts, 3rd in the Atlantic, 5th in the East
Next Game: 2/18 @ Phi, 1pm
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